A statewide environmental advocacy group has a new leader.
Cindy Adams Dunn has been named president and CEO of Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture). She succeeds George Jugovic, who stepped down from the position to work as the head of law staff.
Dunn had previously been working as deputy secretary with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
A longtime advocate for environmentalism, Dunn said she can recall her enthusiasm 15 years ago when PennFuture formed.
“I got my membership form back and I was the seventh member; I was very excited about that,” she said. “I just felt that something like PennFuture had been needed for a long time. It really represents the citizen interest and protecting their rights with the environment in Pennsylvania.”
Dunn, a Pennsylvania native, has previously held key positions with Audubon Pennsylvania and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
According to Dunn, PennFuture’s work against climate change was one of the motivating factors in the move.
“Recently most attractive to me, their active work on climate change at many levels that’s something that I feel a very strong personal urgency on and I really wanted to be at PennFuture to deploy my time to assist with climate change in Pennsylvania,” she said.
One of PennFuture’s contributions in Pittsburgh is partnering with a project called “The Black and Gold City Goes Green.”
“It’s a sustainability project that helps individuals with individual decisions on their impact on the environment,” Dunn said. “For instance, changing light bulbs to fluorescents, for instance how you handle and manage household waste and really focus primarily on the energy sector.”
Another PennFuture intitiative called SunShot is a partnership with the Department of Energy to help ease the permitting process required for installing solar panels.
